Entitled and Aroused

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

 

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
    translation by Coleman Barks

When you look in the mirror, and the person you see isn't the person you are, there's a sort of pain that you feel. It's kind of deep. I starts in your stomach and then it's everywhere, like a poison. It runs through your veins and then bubbles to the surface. Your skin burns and itches like you're having an allergic reaction, and sometimes it takes a moment to realize that you really are. You're having an allergic reaction to yourself . To the person in the mirror. To the person under your skin begging to be released. The thing is-- They don't really give you any sort of benadryl that can fix this. 

I was only four years old when I realized that God wasn't real. Because, if God were real, why would He make this sort of mistake? Why would He put me in this body, when it was so obviously wrong? I remember asking my family about the people in TV who were transitioning to become a different gender. I remember feeling awe for them, and for a moment when I saw them I felt like I wasn't alone. "That's not natural," they said. "God doesn't make mistakes," they said. "They should just love the bodies He gave them." I never asked them about transgender people again, and I came to the conclusion that either He was wrong, or He simply didn't exist. 

From that time, I refused to wear dresses. I never shaved my legs. I never learned the proper way to put on makeup. When I was in school, I purposefully avoided the girls in my class because I didn't want to be standing with them when the teachers addressed us as "girls." Every single "she", every single "her," and every single use of the name I was given at my birth was like a stab in the heart. And I knew why, but I could never bring myself to admit it. I could never tell anybody, I could never even tell myself. Because that's one thing they never tell you about being trans-- It eats you alive. 

I had a few phases here and there where I would wear the girliest clothes I could muster, and I tried makeup. I did my hair up nice, and I painted my nails. It took a long time for me to be able to do this without wanting to throw myself to the floor and cry. It took me a long time to look at myself and lie, saying "this is fine," when a deeper part of me screamed for release. I was in denial. I thought that if I could look pretty enough, if I could act girly enough, I'd become a girl. I'd be "normal." I'd be able to love myself and make my parents proud of who I was. But in the end, all the lying did was force it down. All it did was make me hate everything about myself. And eventually, all it did was make me forget.

When you become sad, and you don't really know why, it's maddening. It's a mental illness, they say. It's a sickness. It's painful. And for a long, long time I had forgotten the reason that this depression came to stay. Even though I'd look in the mirror and I hated everything about myself, I couldn't figure out why that was. I was a girl. Girls were pretty. Girls were confident and they loved themselves for who they were. That's what I had convinced myself of. But again, and again, none of it rang true for me. The problem with continuously lying and telling yourself that you're a girl and you're amazing is that in reality, you're not. There's a certain kind of madness that comes along with lying, and another that comes with lying to yourself. Eventually, you don't know when to stop. Eventually, you believe every word. And eventually, you don't know what the truth is anymore. 

I remember in high school, I had a friend named Matson who would bind their breasts. And I remember how clearly amazed I was that they could be so damn brave. And when they bound, they could wear these amazing shirts, and they were so much happier. I remember being jealous. So jealous that a long dormant beast had been awoken deep within me. And it would be years before I finally let it out. I was so scared. I had finally remembered what it was that had hurt me so deeply when I was a child that I couldn't spend a day without being sad. I remembered the reason that I hated myself with every fiber of my being. I remembered that I wasn't, and never would be a girl. But rather than being relieved, and rather than feeling acceptance for myself, all I could do was panic. 

It would take me years to be able to admit that I wanted to bind. Years of watching documentaries on the trans experience, and immersing myself in LGBT culture while masquerading as an "ally". It would take me years to realize that this monster I had inside of me wasn't a monster at all. It was me. It was the me who didn't lie, and didn't pretend to be someone else. It was the man beneath the mask I had been painting for twenty one long years. Years, and years would go by before I looked in the mirror and realized the person inside of it wasn't someone else. It was me. Just me. I wasn't going to lie anymore. 

I suppose you're probably wondering what this poem, The Guest House, has to do with all of this. You probably thought I had forgotten, didn't you? Well, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little bit off track. You see-- That depression I lived with, the mask I covered myself with, and the dysphoria I still experience today-- I wouldn't be the person I am right now without them. Sure, I'm sad. Sure, I could be doing better if they had never happened but, you know? I'm me. It took me so long to come to terms with myself, and I have so much longer to go. I wouldn't be on this journey without all of that. Those "guests" of mine, some of whom haven't quite left yet, are all very precious. Every sad memory, and every painful lie I told myself shaped the man who lives today. I hated myself, once upon a time. I hated that sadness, and I hated my gender. It seems like a small step to say that you don't hate yourself anymore. But for me, it was the biggest step I've ever taken. Because when you hate yourself as much as I did, you're on a one way road to a dead end. It takes a lot of work to get yourself off of that one way road, but I promise it's worth it.

Nowadays, I look forward to the future pains that tomorrow may bring. My journey is a fun one, I've decided. And I'm not ready for it to have an ending quite yet.